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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25345816">Blindsight</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/itsmoonpeaches/pseuds/itsmoonpeaches'>itsmoonpeaches</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Avatar: The Last Airbender</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Avatar State, Ba Sing Se, Episode: s02e14 The Desert, Friendship, Gen, Missing Scene, POV Toph Beifong, Toph Beifong-centric, Toph Being Awesome, appa's lost days</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-07-17</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-07-17</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-20 08:00:21</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>3,363</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25345816</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/itsmoonpeaches/pseuds/itsmoonpeaches</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>“I didn’t know Aang had that much power,” Toph stated after a pregnant pause.</p><p>Sokka snorted. “He doesn’t look it, but he kind of has the power of the universe on his side.”</p><p>She hesitated, unsure on what else to say. Then, biting her bottom lip, she said, “I didn’t know that he cared about Appa that much either. Enough to…you know…”</p><p>-</p><p>Or, Toph deals with guilt over losing Appa. Sokka and Katara help her to face it head-on like an earthbender like her should. Friendship is complicated.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Aang &amp; Katara &amp; Sokka &amp; Toph, Aang &amp; The Gaang (Avatar), Aang &amp; Toph Beifong, Toph Beifong &amp; Katara, Toph Beifong &amp; Sokka, Toph Beifong &amp; The Gaang</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>21</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>217</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Blindsight</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>I've never written in Toph's perspective before. I kind of wanted to delve into her and her guilt about Appa, and her realizations on what having friends means. Again, it's so compelling that she was the one who was asks if friendships can last more than one lifetime. It's so interesting that's what the writers chose to go into.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Toph had not known what running away from home with the Avatar truly meant until she was far to deep within the journey to turn back. She might have been called naïve if she told people why she wanted to do it. She supposed it was obvious from her upbringing. She desired freedom, she wanted to be recognized for her skill, she wanted to be able to <em>use </em>her skills in earthbending, and not be pushed aside because of perceived weakness. Most of all, she wanted friends.</p><p>The problem was, she did not know what having friends meant. Not really, anyway. She began to realize that the further she traveled.</p><p>For as long as she could remember, she had wondered what friendship was like. Was it a warm, fluffy feeling in her core? A type of happiness that filled the empty spaces of someone? Was it a state of being, in which a person finally comprehended what the meaning of life was? All the time, these questions rifled through her thoughts like badgermoles burrowing through the earth.</p><p>So, when she got the friends she had been asking for, she did not expect everything to be so <em>complicated. </em>She did not presume friendship to mean arguing over setting up a campsite or fighting together over a common enemy. She did not think that it meant she would be pouting over their ideas of the definition of a “mini-vacation.” Perhaps the most surprising of all, she did not ever believe that friendship was shaped by experience.</p><p>It should have been so simple. Yet, there were so many obstacles.</p><p>She would not call herself a spiritual person, but she knew that every bender on the planet had a level of spirituality that non-benders did not possess. There must have been a reason that during her childhood, she heard hopeful stories of the Avatar in court. She passed them off as trivial things, tales from long ago that taught the young how to behave. It had been a century since the last Avatar was ever heard of, and things like the master of all four elements and Air Nomads were all part of anecdotes she chalked up to myths.</p><p>It had been generations. Folktales had to originate from somewhere, right?</p><p>Except, the day Aang came strutting into her parents’ house with light footsteps that did not make sense and declared himself a person she had only heard of in legends, she was proven wrong.</p><p>“I’m coming with you,” she had said to him with defiance, and they had let her join them without a fight. She thought it would be easy to fit in.</p><p>There were a lot of things that she as Toph Beifong and The Blind Bandit, did not like to admit to being afraid of. As a bender, she was under the impression that she should let go of fear, that she should be stronger to control the stubborn element of earth.</p><p>She had not felt fear when Aang came to meet her in Gaoling, though. It was amid a swirling sandstorm upon a desert she could only make out fuzzy shapes upon, that she knew what fear was. She had not felt this kind of terror since she was younger and lost in caves, desperate for someone to find her because everything was black, and she could not see. She had never been able to see. She hoped that someone would come to save her like the badgermoles had when they taught her how to earthbend and see through the vibrations rippling through the earth.</p><p>“Tell me where Appa is!” the voice of a thousand Avatars boomed, and Toph was shocked to the point where she could not move.</p><p>This fear was far deeper than being trapped in a cavern of nothing. It was primal, instinctive. It was like her body and her brain knew that this was not <em>normal. </em>The vibrations coming from Aang were no longer what she recognized as him, it was the vibrations of something incredibly powerful. He was radiating an energy so pure and electric, that she knew there was no one living person that could ever hope to fight it. Not even her. She could feel it even through the shifting sand.</p><p>She finally knew what an Avatar was capable of. She was afraid of her friend.</p><p>And it was all her fault.</p><p>“Just get out of here! Run!” shouted Sokka. She did not have the time nor the will to disagree. He ducked her head, grabbed her hand, and forced her to sprint.</p><p>She may have been blind, but she could still feel the sharp sting of sand battering at her eyes. She lifted an elbow, legs pumping, as she covered her face with it.</p><p>There were screams, the crashing of what might have been sand gliders and whipping fabrics. Men cried out and tumbled all about them. All she could feel was Sokka’s hand grasping hers. His fingers were so tight around hers that she thought there might be some bruising. She could taste the dry air smacking into her face.</p><p>She heard Sokka gasp beside her. The winds settled slowly. The panic subsided, and soon he was taking her again by the arm, leading her forward into the spot where the Avatar was about to tear them all apart.</p><p>She did not understand what had just happened, but all she knew was that in minutes, Sokka was in charge. Katara and Aang remained silent.</p><p>“Can you get us out here?” asked Sokka. “Bring us toward Ba Sing Se.”</p><p>Someone grunted in consent.</p><p>Before she knew it, she was stepping onto a wooden sand sailor and held on for dear life. She heard the telltale whirling of the sand around her, licking at the sails, riding the gales. She could not tell exactly where everyone was because they were not standing on earth, but she could guess based on the amount of talking she heard.</p><p>“How’s he doing?” came Sokka’s distinctive tone. He sounded like he was trying to whisper, but her hearing was too good.</p><p>A sigh. “I don’t know,” said Katara with an equally quiet response. Exhaustion seeped into every intonation. “He’s asleep. The Avatar State took a lot out of him this time, but I think it’s more than that…you know how much Appa means to him.”</p><p>Toph’s heart dropped to the bottom of her stomach.</p><p>“I know,” said Sokka, resigned.</p><p>Toph tuned them out, guilt flooding her like an overflowing river. The only comfort she had while riding such a wooden monstrosity, was the fact that she could hear the pitter-patter of Momo’s paws getting closer to her. The little animal pushed himself against her thigh and curled up on her lap. With a little hesitation, she brought her palm down to touch his soft fur.</p><p>She dozed off. Her dreams were full of stern comments from her parents, not allowing her to venture outside their walls, of the silence in her garden where no friends came to greet her, of yelling and crying and Appa’s despondent groans fading into the distance.</p><p>She awoke with a start.</p><p>They had stopped. Someone informed them that they were at the edge of Si Wong Desert now, that they could camp wherever they were for the rest of the night.</p><p>Toph groaned, scrubbing a palm on her face. “Let’s just get out of this pudding,” she said to no one in particular.</p><p>Someone guided her to the edge of a ramp, and she jumped down on her own. Sweet relief shivered up her shins when her feet landed on rock. Finally, <em>finally, </em>she was not blind anymore.</p><p>The four of them plus Momo moved as a unit. She could tell it was night because of the crickets that sang throughout the landscape. She could sense some of them hopping through blades of grass as they walked by.</p><p>No one said a word, and perhaps that was for the best. She did not feel like talking much either.</p><p>“Let’s camp here for the night,” spoke Katara, her voice softer than usual. She sighed. “No, Sokka, I think we’re all too tired to set up tents…” She stopped abruptly after she said it. It sounded like she realized something.</p><p>Soon after, Toph realized it too. There were no tents. Their supplies had been in Appa’s saddle. Pressing her lips together, Toph said, “Let me do it.”</p><p>She got into a stance, spread her legs apart, lifted her arms. She conjured an earth tent for Sokka and Katara to share, one for Aang, and one for herself.  She was met with stunned silence, but she paid it no mind. She stomped her way into her own tent that she had built into the corner of the wall that separated the desert and the mainland with a splashing waterfall nearby.</p><p>It was not long before everyone else followed.</p><p>Toph lay on her back with her arms behind her head after choosing a rock to rest her feet on and away from the ground. After a while, she guessed that it was futile to try and sleep. None of that nonsense was coming to her. She was tired and worn, and guilty in a way that she did not know how to deal with.</p><p>She got out of her tent in a few swift moments and decided to sit by the waterfall’s edge. Carefully, she dipped her feet in the water up to her ankles. Her hands were flat on the ground. The cooling effect was nice, and a respite from the searing heat that they had just left. It was one of the few times she was grateful for the numbing sensation to her senses. Perhaps that was the reason she did not quite notice that Sokka had sat next to her until she recognized his heartbeat.</p><p>“What are you doing up, Snoozles?” she muttered, not bothering to turn her head toward his general direction. “I thought you liked your beauty sleep.”</p><p>“Couldn’t sleep,” he answered. She could feel the way he sagged into his seat.</p><p>“Why can’t you sleep?”</p><p>“I don’t know. I think I have some of that cactus juice still in my head.” He shifted a little away from her and said under his breath, “I’m kind of glad I wasn’t myself for a lot of our time out there though.”</p><p>They sat in a comfortable silence for a few moments. The rushing water was like a balm to her ears after how noisy it had been. The buzzard wasps were loud, the sandbenders were loud, Aang’s hundreds of lives were loud, loud, loud<em>. </em></p><p>“I didn’t know Aang had that much power,” she stated after a pregnant pause. A few weeks ago, she might have scoffed at how much she marveled at Twinkle Toes’ bending prowess. She had always known he could fight, but she had not known until now to what extent that meant.</p><p>Sokka snorted. “He doesn’t look it, but he kind of has the power of the universe on his side.”</p><p>She hesitated, unsure on what else to say. Then, biting her bottom lip, she said, “I didn’t know that he cared about Appa that much either. Enough to…you know…”</p><p>Sokka let out a steady breath. It took him a while to respond. She could feel his gaze on her. It was like a feeling that he had all his attention focused on her face.</p><p>“Aang doesn’t get angry,” he remarked, “unless the people he cares about are in danger. Trust me, I know.”</p><p>It was something she had learned that day as well. She had been in the presence of an annoyed Aang, an irritated and frustrated Aang, but not the kind of anger that had consumed him after Appa was stolen. This was the kind of anger that she figured was the kind she should be the wariest about. It was the people that were kindest and calmest becoming something they were not that was the most frightening.</p><p>“He is the last airbender,” added Sokka.</p><p>“Yeah,” she replied. It was something she already knew, but maybe she did not understand.</p><p>“Toph,” he said slowly, “you know he doesn’t blame you, right? He was just letting his emotions get to him.”</p><p>She did not say anything. Instead, she frowned, turning her head downward.</p><p>Sokka scooted closer to her. She could feel his stable heartbeat with her fingertips. He swallowed before saying anything else. “I know you’re feeling pretty down right now,” he continued, “but don’t beat yourself up over this. I meant it when I said he doesn’t blame you.”</p><p>“How can you be so sure?” She hated that she sounded small.</p><p>“I’m sure,” he countered. “Aang is…complicated. A lot of stuff happened to him.”</p><p>She nodded in consent. She got it, really. Honestly. Sokka knew Aang better than she did, had been with him longer. He knew how to be a friend better than her.  </p><p>She felt him nod, stop to think better of it, then he put his hand on top of hers. She did not bother to pull away.</p><p>“Look Toph,” he plowed on, “I don’t think him triggering the Avatar State was your fault. I don’t think he was angry at you. I think he was angry that Appa got lost in general.”</p><p>“It’s still my fault.”</p><p>His hand squeezed hers and let go just as fast. “Stop,” he commanded. “If Aang was angry with you, why did he trust you enough to listen to what you said about that guy that stole Appa?”</p><p>When she did not answer, he took a deep breath and went on. “Okay, I’m going to say this once, so listen to me.”</p><p>She nodded.</p><p>“Imagine you’re still at Earth Rumble Six,” Sokka stated, words filled with conviction. “Lots of people are cheering you on. You’re standing in the middle, all happy about it because you won. Then, a second later all the cheering stops and you’re by yourself. Only those one of those weird badgermole things is left with you. You find out that Earth Rumble Six is gone. What do you feel?”</p><p>She frowned and crossed her arms. “Well that’s stupid and will never happen.”</p><p>Sokka huffed, exasperated. “Just answer the question, Toph!”</p><p>She stopped to think. She dug her fingernails further into the dirt, caking every bit of soil possible into each digit. What would she feel? “I guess pretty dumb,” she said. “I would be happy for nothing.”</p><p>“Right, okay,” stated Sokka, sounding pleased. “Now you go outside, and no one remembers what Earth Rumble Six is. It was destroyed years ago. All you got is your badgermole. Then someone decides to take it on a joy ride in the forest and never come back with it. What do you feel now?”</p><p>She scrunched her face. “I guess I would feel pretty alone.”</p><p>She felt Sokka nod. “Yeah, you would be alone with the knowledge of what Earth Rumble Six was, and the badgermole was your only friend that knew too.”</p><p>She knew what he was trying to do, and though it was sweet of him, it was also more convoluted than she had bargained for. Toph sniggered despite herself.</p><p>“Hey, why are you laughing?” He was indignant.</p><p>She muffled her snorts with the back of one of her hands. “Nothing, Snoozles,” she smirked. “I get it. Thanks for making me feel better even though you’re really bad at analogies.”</p><p>It was easier to try to sleep after their conversation, but she did have a lighter spring to her step. Twinkle Toes would have been proud if he knew. Though she did it with a little trepidation, she was the first one to shake Aang awake. “Let’s go Twinkle Toes,” she chimed. “You’re burning daylight. We got to get us to Ba Sing Se.”</p><p>She hoped he was happy to see her.</p><p>-</p><p>It was not until after facing the metal beast that was the Fire Nation’s drill, going through the trials and tribulations of the Earth King’s fancy party, and dealing with tiptoeing around the shady man known as Long Feng, that Toph was faced with her guilt again.</p><p>It had been a couple weeks since Appa was lost. Their month in Ba Sing Se was trudging along more like a land slug than a sea slug. She despised every minute of it.</p><p>On one of their off days, the group decided to split up for whatever ridiculous reason. Katara had pushed her into some sort of spa day torture, Sokka did what Sokka did, and Aang…well. That was when the guilt rammed into her full force again.</p><p>Everything had been going along as well as could be for their little gang. As in, everything was spiraling out of control with each new step they took. Aang had not looked at her once with disdain as far as she could tell, and he talked to her normally. But as soon as he proclaimed that he was going to go look around the zoos to see if they had heard anything about a missing flying bison, she was coiling into herself.</p><p>“We definitely need this,” exclaimed Katara. “A mud bath followed by a sauna? Sounds like something we would like!”</p><p>Toph groaned.</p><p>Later, she did admit that the mud portion was far more enjoyable than she thought it would be. Though, the foot touching left little more to be desired. It was when they were relaxing in the sauna and after she and Katara had bended their elements into the heater, that she got the courage to say something.</p><p>“Well this is nice,” she offered, edging into a conversation. Maybe Katara would have better insight.</p><p>“Yeah it really is,” Katara replied.</p><p>She gulped and tried to let the warm steam around her calm her mind. The wood grain on her seat was oddly relaxing, and though she was virtually blind in the spot they were in, it was a space in which she could soften her muscles and roll her shoulders back.</p><p>“Hey, Katara…do you think we’re ever going to find Appa?”</p><p>She heard the sudden silence in the room. The bench creaked, and she guessed Katara moved a leg.</p><p>“I have to believe we will,” Katara said after a beat. “I think that’s all we can do.”</p><p>“Can we do anything else?”</p><p>“Be Aang’s friends,” she said simply.</p><p>Katara’s words gave her time. Her towel sat on her head, then it was removed in a deft spin. They had makeup painted on their faces even though Toph had no idea what she looked like. Even so, she felt pretty in her own way. Confident in an appearance she would never see.</p><p>Later, awful girls made fun of her on the bridge and called her a poodle monkey, and Katara defended her. She never felt more beautiful.</p><p>The pair of them walked back together on the open streets of the Upper Ring. She puffed out her chest and marched. She told herself that she would face what this was head-on, because that was who she was. She was an earthbender and she did not run away from her problems. There was no avoid and evade in her world.</p><p>She went straight to Aang, banging open the door with as much bravado as she could muster. He was sitting on the floor playing with Momo. She could feel him look up; his heart rapid after being startled.</p><p>Toph stopped right in front of him, sitting down with her hands on her knees and facing him without knowing if she was sending him a proper glare.</p><p>“We’re going to find Appa,” she insisted.</p><p>Toph could almost feel the waves of amusement rolling off him in waves. He gave her his full attention.</p><p>“Listen up, Twinkle Toes. Here’s my idea,” she dictated with pride, “Let’s speed up the process and make some fliers. One of you guys can make them.”</p><p>When the three others jumped up and down in excitement, yelling about what a fantastic suggestion it was, she felt joy. For once, she thought she knew what friendship was.</p><p>Friendship was laughter and beauty and forgiveness.</p><p> </p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Thank you for taking the time to read this! Please leave a comment if you so please!</p></blockquote></div></div>
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